The Latest in IT Security

While Google already offers two-step verification for most of its online services, the company announced that it has acquired Israeli start-up SlickLogin, which specializes in identification and authentification based on sound waves. SlickLogins technology allows a user to be identified through high-frequency sound waves, inaudible to the human ear, that are emitted from a computer and captured by a smartphones microphone. The smartphone then sends a signal via an app to the web service being requested, in order to verify the user and launch the service. While it does require the use of a smartphone to connect to the computer, this system, according to the developers, is extremely secure in the face of a hacking threat compared to others — except, of course, in extreme cases when both the smartphone and login codes are stolen.